October 20 is World Statistics Day and a good occasion to reflect on the ever growing attention to statistics. Not only does the old adage “if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it” hold true, but increasingly we suspect that if “you do not measure it you do not pay attention to it.” However, reliable statistics remain expensive to produce...

Human trafficking, which represents the recruitment, transport, receipt and harboring of people for the purpose of exploiting their labor, affects almost all parts of the world and it is having a negative impact on human development progress. According to the 2016 Slavery Index there are today some 46 million men, women and children in modern...

How has the world of child labour changed since you first got involved in the field? What are some of the positive changes and some of the less positive ones?
When I started in 1981, there was complete ignorance about this serious problem. People easily ignored it with a common perception that they are poor children, and they are working,...

There is no denying that conflict has far-reaching negative effects, including on employment. But the prevailing understanding of the relationship between conflict and employment does not fully recognize the complexity of this relationship – a shortcoming that undermines effective employment policies in fragile states.
The conventional wisdom is...

Each year, the Human Development Index (HDI), the signature index of the Human Development Reports (HDR), captures headlines across the globe, as countries track their progress in education, health and income. Although the HDI is not a comprehensive measure of human development, it is a broader assessment of human well-being and it shows how,...